August 2017

August 16, 2017

I am one of the signatories of the statement below. If you are a Christian ethicist, I urge you to follow the links at the bottom of the page and add your name.

A Statement from Christian Ethicists Without Borderson White Supremacy and Racism

August 14, 2017

As followers of Jesus Christ and as Christian ethicists representing a range of denominations and schools of thought, we stand in resolute agreement in firmly condemning racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and neo-Nazi ideology as a sin against God that divides the human family created in God’s image.

In January of 2017, white nationalist groups emboldened by the 2016 election planned an armed march against the Jews of Whitefish, Montana. On August 11th and 12th, hundreds of armed neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. As we mourn the deaths of 32-year old counter-protester Heather Heyer and state troopers H. Jay Cullen and Berke Bates from this most recent incident, we unequivocally denounce racist speech and actions against people of any race, religion, or national origin.

White supremacy and racism deny the dignity of each human being revealed through the Incarnation. The evil of white supremacy and racism must be brought face-to-face before the figure of Jesus Christ, who cannot be confined to any one culture or nationality. Through faith we proclaim that God the Creator is the origin of all human persons. In the words of Frederick Douglass, “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.”

The greatest commandments, as Jesus taught and exemplified, are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves; and so as children of God, and sisters and brothers to all, we hold the following:

We reject racism and anti-Semitism, which are radical evils that Christianity must actively resist.

We reject the sinful white supremacy at the heart of the “Alt Right” movement as Christian heresy.

We reject the idolatrous notion of a national god. God cannot be reduced to “America’s god.”

We reject the “America First” doctrine, which is a pernicious and idolatrous error. It foolishly asks Americans to replace the worship of God with the worship of the nation, poisons both our religious traditions and virtuous American patriotism, and isolates this country from the community of nations. Such nationalism erodes our civic and religious life, and fuels xenophobic and racist attacks against immigrants and religious minorities, including our Jewish and Muslim neighbors.

We confess that all human beings possess God-given dignity and are members of one human family, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin.

We proclaim that the gospel of Jesus Christ has social and political implications. Those who claim salvation in Jesus Christ, therefore, must publicly name evil, actively resist it, and demonstrate a world of harmony and justice in the midst of racial, religious and indeed all forms of human diversity.

Therefore, we call upon leaders of every Christian denomination, especially pastors, to condemn white supremacy, white nationalism, and racism.

Contemplate and respect the image of God imprinted on each human being.

Work across religious traditions to reflect on the ways we have been complicit in upholding and benefiting from the sins of racism and white supremacy.

Pray for the strength and courage to stand emphatically against racism, white supremacy, and nationalism in all its forms.

Participate in acts of peaceful protest, including rallies, marches, and at times, even civil disobedience. Do not remain passive bystanders in the face of the heresies of racism, white supremacy, and white nationalism.

Engage in political action to oppose structural racism.

We will bring the best of our traditions to an ecclesial and societal examination of conscience where rhetoric and acts of hatred against particular groups can be publicly named as grave sins and injustices.

Finally, as ethicists, we commit—through our teaching, writing, and service—to the ongoing, hard work of building bridges and restoring wholeness where racist and xenophobic ideologies have brought brokenness and pain.

(If you are a Christian ethicist or teach Christian ethics and wish to add your name, please email Tobias Winright at tobias.winright@slu.edu or Matthew Tapie at matthew.tapie@saintleo.edu or Anna Floerke Scheid at scheida@duq.edu or MT Dávila at mtdavila@ants.edu with your name, highest degree, title, and institution. Institutions are named for identification purposes only and this does not necessarily represent their support of this statement, although we hope they do, too.)

Two years ago, I wrote a post about the problem of Confederate monuments. I concluded the post this way:

What I would propose then, is that we begin the process of dismantling and replacing those Confederate memorials with memorials to the reality of slavery. That we replace statues celebrating confederate soldiers and generals with statues celebrating union soldiers and generals, and that, at long last, we construct a national memorial that confronts the reality of slavery, so that we can confront our national shame squarely, and be called to account for it. Indeed, I'd suggest a national slavery museum, much like the National Holocaust Museum, where Americans can confront the history of slavery, unvarnished by revisionist, pro-confederate propaganda, and recognize the genuine evil that the South fought on behalf of, and that remains unacknowledged to this day. It would be my hope that, within my lifetime, someone wearing a Confederate flag would be looked on with the same kind of disgust that we would currently reserve for someone wearing a swastika.

Of course, this was before the 2016 election. This was before the era of Donald Trump. This was before actual white supremacists were given positions in the White House. And this was before last weekend in Charlottesville, when neo-Nazis marched openly wearing the symbols of fascism. We've moved beyond the point where the general shame associated with overt racism is a sufficient disincentive to prevent the mass mobilization of actual, honest-to-goodness Nazis, marching unmasked in the streets.

It's rather remarkable to me that we've come to this point in the United States. I literally couldn't conceive of it two years ago, as the post above demonstrates. Hell, I couldn't conceive of it 10 months ago, before the last election. I thought we were better than this -- more stable, more sane. The fact that as a nation we are not is deeply troubling to me. The question for us all to contemplate is what we do now, given that this is the world in which we now dwell. As of this moment, I don't have anything resembling a detailed plan in place. All I do know is that whatever we do, it needs to be encapsulated by one key concept: